The present invention relates to garment hangers, and in particular to garment hangers that are used for the transportation and/or retail display of garments.
A wide variety of hangers have been designed for the support of pants, skirts and the like. One general class or type of such garment hangers is that which includes a clamp or grasping mechanism that positively secures the garment to the hanger body. Although such clamping mechanisms operate satisfactorily to secure the garment to the hanger, one problem associated with these hangers is the time required to secure the garment. Although the securing time per garment may not in itself be lengthy, for wholesale manufacturers or the like even minor excesses in per garment handling results in excessive costs. Another problem associated with such clamp hangers is the marking or creasing of the garment which results from a clamp element grasping or engaging the exterior of the garment. Such markings reduce the aesthetics of the garment for retail and are therefore highly undesirable. Pressing or otherwise removing these markings from each garment prior to retail is cost prohibitive.
Another class of garment hangers used in the supporting of pants, skirts and the like are those which are secured to the inside of the garment. Such hangers normally include at least two garment engaging surfaces, and some type of mechanism for spreading or separating these engagement surfaces. The garment is secured to the hanger by converging the engagement surfaces, inserting the hanger within the waistband of the garment and then separating these surfaces to engage and tension the waistband. Such hangers avoid the problem of exterior markings on the garment.
A problem associated with such internal expanding hangers is that of the degree of support provided. Since there is no positive clamp element such hangers do not provide as secure a support as the clamping variety noted above. Certain internally engaging hangers therefore do not provide sufficient support to withstand the jolting and jarring to which a suspended garment is subjected during transport from the manufacturer. Further, since the garment is secured to the hanger through the tension applied by the engagement surfaces, the separating or tensioning mechanism is usually relatively complex. The manufacture of such complex hanger designs is both time consuming and expensive.
In an attempt to resolve some of the problems noted above, one type of garment hanger employs a pair of tensioning arms that are hinged to pivot their outer ends divergently downwardly. Garment securing clamps are carried on the tensioning arm outer ends. A pair of connecting arms are hingedly joined to the tensioning arms and provide an anchoring location for the support hook. Due to this hanger configuration, the garment mounting outer ends do not vary substantially in a vertical relation to the hook as the outer ends are converged and diverged. This provides a pleasing uniform appearance of the garments when hung by such hangers on a garment rack. Further, since the tensioning arms pivot downwardly to diverge, any downward force exerted on the garment, such as occurs due to jarring during transport, operates to diverge and increase the grip applied by the garment securing clamps.
Although such a hanger reduces some of the problems noted above, hangers of this type still exhibit the marking problems associated with external securing clamps. Since most of the tension applied by the hanger simply results from the inherent resiliency of the hanger material, secure support may not be supplied by the relatively minimal lateral forces generated by the plastic interconnection of the tensioning arms and connecting arms. Further, the tensioning arms of such hanger are not conveniently converged or retracted, and may require the use of two hands for the hanger alone. This both complicates and slows the garment hanging process.